PREFACEMY WATCHPOLITICAL ECONOMYTHE JUMPING FROGJOURNALISM IN TENNESSEETHE STORY OF THE BAD LITTLE BOYTHE STORY OF THE GOOD LITTLE BOYA COUPLE OF POEMS BY TWAIN AND MOORENIAGARAANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTSTO RAISE POULTRYEXPERIENCE OF THE MCWILLIAMSES WITH MEMBRANOUS CROUPMY FIRST LITERARY VENTUREHOW THE AUTHOR WAS SOLD IN NEWARKTHE OFFICE BOREJOHNNY GREERTHE FACTS IN THE CASE OF THE GREAT BEEF CONTRACTTHE CASE OF GEORGE FISHERDISGRACEFUL PERSECUTION OF A BOYTHE JUDGES "SPIRITED WOMAN"INFORMATION WANTEDSOME LEARNED FABLES, FOR GOOD OLD BOYS AND GIRLSMY LATE SENATORIAL SECRETARYSHIPA FASHION ITEMRILEY-NEWSPAPER CORRESPONDENTA FINE OLD MANSCIENCE vs. LUCKTHE LATE BENJAMIN FRANKLINMR. BLOKE'S ITEMA MEDIEVAL ROMANCEPETITION CONCERNING COPYRIGHTAFTER-DINNER SPEECHLIONIZING MURDERERSA NEW CRIMEA CURIOUS DREAMA TRUE STORYTHE SIAMESE TWINSSPEECH AT THE SCOTTISH BANQUET IN LONDONA GHOST STORYTHE CAPITOLINE VENUSSPEECH ON ACCIDENT INSURANCEJOHN CHINAMAN IN NEW YORKHOW I EDITED AN AGRICULTURAL PAPERTHE PETRIFIED MANMY BLOODY MASSACRETHE UNDERTAKER'S CHATCONCERNING CHAMBERMAIDSAURELIA'S UNFORTUNATE YOUNG MAN"AFTER" JENKINSABOUT BARBERS"PARTY CRIES" IN IRELANDTHE FACTS CONCERNING THE RECENT RESIGNATIONHISTORY REPEATS ITSELFHONORED AS A CURIOSITYFIRST INTERVIEW WITH ARTEMUS WARDCANNIBALISM IN THE CARSTHE KILLING OF JULIUS CAESAR "LOCALIZED"THE WIDOW'S PROTESTTHE SCRIPTURAL PANORAMISTCURING A COLDA CURIOUS PLEASURE EXCURSIONRUNNING FOR GOVERNORA MYSTERIOUS VISIT

PREFACE

I have scattered through this volume a mass of matter which has neverbeen in print before (such as "Learned Fables for Good Old Boys andGirls," the "Jumping Frog restored to the English tongue after martyrdomin the French," the "Membranous Croup" sketch, and many others which Ineed not specify): not doing this in order to make an advertisement ofit, but because these things seemed instructive.

HARTFORD, 1875. MARK TWAIN.

SKETCHES NEW AND OLD

MY WATCH--[Written about 1870.]

AN INSTRUCTIVE LITTLE TALE

My beautiful new watch had run eighteen months without losing or gaining,and without breaking any part of its machinery or stopping. I had cometo believe it infallible in its judgments about the time of day, and toconsider its constitution and its anatomy imperishable. But at last, onenight, I let it run down. I grieved about it as if it were a recognizedmessenger and forerunner of calamity. But by and by I cheered up, setthe watch by guess, and commanded my bodings and superstitions to depart.Next day I stepped into the chief jeweler's to set it by the exact time,and the head of the establishment took it out of my hand and proceeded toset it for me. Then he said, "She is four minutes slow-regulator wantspushing up." I tried to stop him--tried to make him understand that thewatch kept perfect time. But no; all this human cabbage could see wasthat the watch was four minutes slow, and the regulator must be pushed upa little; and so, while I danced around him in anguish, and implored himto let the watch alone, he calmly and cruelly did the shameful deed. Mywatch began to gain. It gained faster and faster day by day. Within theweek it sickened to a raging fever, and its pulse went up to a hundredand fifty in the shade. At the end of two months it had left all thetimepieces of the town far in the rear, and was a fraction over thirteendays ahead of the almanac. It was away into November enjoying the snow,while the October leaves were still turning. It hurried up house rent,bills payable, and such things, in such a ruinous way that I could notabide it. I took it to the watchmaker to be regulated. He asked me if Ihad ever had it repaired. I said no, it had never needed any repairing.He looked a look of vicious happiness and eagerly pried the watch open,and then put a small dice-box into his eye and peered into its machinery.He said it wanted cleaning and oiling, besides regulating--come in aweek. After being cleaned and oiled, and regulated, my watch slowed downto that degree that it ticked like a tolling bell. I began to be left bytrains, I failed all appointments, I got to missing my dinner; my watchstrung out three days' grace to four and let me go to protest;I gradually drifted back into yesterday, then day before, then into lastweek, and by and by the comprehension came upon me that all solitary andalone I was lingering along in week before last, and the world was out ofsight. I seemed to detect in myself a sort of sneaking fellow-feelingfor the mummy in the museum, and a desire to swap news with him. I wentto a watchmaker again. He took the watch all to pieces while I waited,and then said the barrel was "swelled." He said he could reduce it inthree days. After this the watch averaged well, but nothing more. Forhalf a day it would go like the very mischief, and keep up such a barkingand wheezing and whooping and sneezing and snorting, that I could nothear myself think for the disturbance; and as long as it held out therewas not a watch in the land that stood any chance against it. But therest of the day it would keep on slowing down and fooling along until allthe clocks it had left behind caught up again. So at last, at the end oftwenty-four hours, it would trot up to the judges' stand all right andjust in time. It would show a fair and square average, and no man couldsay it had done more or less than its duty. But a correct average isonly a mild virtue in a watch, and I took this instrument to anotherwatchmaker. He said the king-bolt was broken. I said I was glad it wasnothing more serious. To tell the plain truth, I had no idea what theking-bolt was, but I did not choose to appear ignorant to a stranger.He repaired the king-bolt, but what the watch gained in one way it lostin another. It would run awhile and then stop awhile, and then runawhile again, and so on, using its own discretion about the intervals.And every time it went off it kicked back like a musket. I padded mybreast for a few days, but finally took the watch to another watchmaker.He picked it all to pieces, and turned the ruin over and over under hisglass; and then he said there appeared to be something the matter withthe hair-trigger. He fixed it, and gave it a fresh start. It did wellnow, except that always at ten minutes to ten the hands would shuttogether like a pair of scissors, and from that time forth they wouldtravel together. The oldest man in the world could not make head or tailof the time of day by such a watch, and so I went again to have the thingrepaired. This person said that the crystal had got bent, and that themainspring was not straight. He also remarked that part of the worksneeded half-soling. He made these things all right, and then mytimepiece performed unexceptionably, save that now and then, afterworking along quietly for nearly eight hours, everything inside would letgo all of a sudden and begin to buzz like a bee, and the hands wouldstraightway begin to spin round and round so fast that theirindividuality was lost completely, and they simply seemed a delicatespider's web over the face of the watch. She would reel off the nexttwenty-four hours in six or seven minutes, and then stop with a bang.I went with a heavy heart to one more watchmaker, and looked on while hetook her to pieces. Then I prepared to cross-question him rigidly, forthis thing was getting serious. The watch had cost two hundred dollarsoriginally, and I seemed to have paid out two or three thousand forrepairs. While I waited and looked on I presently recognized in thiswatchmaker an old acquaintance--a steamboat engineer of other days, andnot a good engineer, either. He examined all the parts carefully, justas the other watchmakers had done, and then delivered his verdict withthe same confidence of manner.

He said:

"She makes too much steam-you want to hang the monkey-wrench on thesafety-valve!"

I brained him on the spot, and had him buried at my own expense.

My uncle William (now deceased, alas!) used to say that a good horse was,a good horse until it had run away once, and that a good watch was a goodwatch until the repairers got a chance at it. And he used to wonder whatbecame of all the unsuccessful tinkers, and gunsmiths, and shoemakers,and engineers, and blacksmiths; but nobody could ever tell him.

POLITICAL ECONOMY

Political Economy is the basis of all good government. The wisest men of all ages have brought to bear upon this subject the--

[Here I was interrupted and informed that a stranger wished to see medown at the door. I went and confronted him, and asked to know hisbusiness, struggling all the time to keep a tight rein on my seethingpolitical-economy ideas, and not let them break away from me or gettangled in their harness. And privately I wished the stranger was in thebottom of the canal with a cargo of wheat on top of him. I was all in afever, but he was cool. He said he was sorry to disturb me, but as hewas passing he noticed that I needed some lightning-rods. I said, "Yes,yes--go on--what about it?" He said there was nothing about it, inparticular--nothing except that he would like to put them up for me.I am new to housekeeping; have been used to hotels and boarding-housesall my life. Like anybody else of similar experience, I try to appear(to strangers) to be an old housekeeper; consequently I said in anoffhand way that I had been intending for some time to have six or eightlightning-rods put up, but--The stranger started, and looked inquiringlyat me, but I was serene. I thought that if I chanced to make anymistakes, he would not catch me by my countenance. He said he wouldrather have my custom than any man's in town. I said, "All right," andstarted off to wrestle with my great subject again, when he called meback and said it would be necessary to know exactly how many "points" Iwanted put up, what parts of the house I wanted them on, and what qualityof rod I preferred. It was close quarters for a man not used to theexigencies of housekeeping; but I went through creditably, and heprobably never suspected that I was a novice. I told him to put up eight"points," and put them all on the roof, and use the best quality of rod.He said he could furnish the "plain" article at 20 cents a foot;"coppered," 25 cents; "zinc-plated spiral-twist," at 30 cents, that wouldstop a streak of lightning any time, no matter where it was bound, and"render its errand harmless and its further progress apocryphal." I saidapocryphal was no slouch of a word, emanating from the source it did,but, philology aside, I liked the spiral-twist and would take that brand.Then he said he could make two hundred and fifty feet answer; but to doit right, and make the best job in town of it, and attract the admirationof the just and the unjust alike, and compel all parties to say theynever saw a more symmetrical and hypothetical display of lightning-rodssince they were born, he supposed he really couldn't get along withoutfour hundred, though he was not vindictive, and trusted he was willing totry. I said, go ahead and use four hundred, and make any kind of a jobhe pleased out of it, but let me get back to my work. So I got rid ofhim at last; and now, after half an hour spent in getting my train ofpolitical-economy thoughts coupled together again, I am ready to go ononce more.]

richest treasures of their genius, their experience of life, and their learning. The great lights of commercial jurisprudence, international confraternity, and biological deviation, of all ages, all civilizations, and all nationalities, from Zoroaster down to Horace Greeley, have--

[Here I was interrupted again, and required to go down and confer furtherwith that lightning-rod man. I hurried off, boiling and surging withprodigious thoughts wombed in words of such majesty that each one of themwas in itself a straggling procession of syllables that might be fifteenminutes passing a given point, and once more I confronted him--he so calmand sweet, I so hot and frenzied. He was standing in the contemplativeattitude of the Colossus of Rhodes, with one foot on my infant tuberose,and the other among my pansies, his hands on his hips, his hat-brimtilted forward, one eye shut and the other gazing critically andadmiringly in the direction of my principal chimney. He said now therewas a state of things to make a man glad to be alive; and added, "I leaveit to you if you ever saw anything more deliriously picturesque thaneight lightning-rods on one chimney?" I said I had no presentrecollection of anything that transcended it. He said that in hisopinion nothing on earth but Niagara Falls was superior to it in the wayof natural scenery. All that was needed now, he verily believed, to makemy house a perfect balm to the eye, was to kind of touch up the otherchimneys a little, and thus "add to the generous 'coup d'oeil' a soothinguniformity of achievement which would allay the excitement naturallyconsequent upon the 'coup d'etat.'" I asked him if he learned to talkout of a book, and if I could borrow it anywhere? He smiled pleasantly,and said that his manner of speaking was not taught in books, and thatnothing but familiarity with lightning could enable a man to handle hisconversational style with impunity. He then figured up an estimate, andsaid that about eight more rods scattered about my roof would about fixme right, and he guessed five hundred feet of stuff would do it; andadded that the first eight had got a little the start of him, so tospeak, and used up a mere trifle of material more than he had calculatedon--a hundred feet or along there. I said I was in a dreadful hurry,and I wished we could get this business permanently mapped out, so that Icould go on with my work. He said, "I could have put up those eightrods, and marched off about my business--some men would have done it.But no; I said to myself, this man is a stranger to me, and I will diebefore I'll wrong him; there ain't lightning-rods enough on that house,and for one I'll never stir out of my tracks till I've done as I would bedone by, and told him so. Stranger, my duty is accomplished; if therecalcitrant and dephlogistic messenger of heaven strikes your--""There, now, there," I said, "put on the other eight--add five hundredfeet of spiral-twist--do anything and everything you want to do; but calmyour sufferings, and try to keep your feelings where you can reach themwith the dictionary. Meanwhile, if we understand each other now, I willgo to work again."

I think I have been sitting here a full hour this time, trying to getback to where I was when my train of thought was broken up by the lastinterruption; but I believe I have accomplished it at last, and mayventure to proceed again.]

wrestled with this great subject, and the greatest among them have found it a worthy adversary, and one that always comes up fresh and smiling after every throw. The great Confucius said that he would rather be a profound political economist than chief of police. Cicero frequently said that political economy was the grandest consummation that the human mind was capable of consuming; and even our own Greeley had said vaguely but forcibly that "Political--

[Here the lightning-rod man sent up another call for me. I went down ina state of mind bordering on impatience. He said he would rather havedied than interrupt me, but when he was employed to do a job, and thatjob was expected to be done in a clean, workmanlike manner, and when itwas finished and fatigue urged him to seek the rest and recreation hestood so much in need of, and he was about to do it, but looked up andsaw at a glance that all the calculations had been a little out, and if athunder-storm were to come up, and that house, which he felt a personalinterest in, stood there with nothing on earth to protect it but sixteenlightning-rods--"Let us have peace!" I shrieked. "Put up a hundred andfifty! Put some on the kitchen! Put a dozen on the barn! Put a coupleon the cow! Put one on the cook!--scatter them all over the persecutedplace till it looks like a zinc-plated, spiral-twisted, silver-mountedcanebrake! Move! Use up all the material you can get your hands on, andwhen you run out of lightning-rods put up ramrods, cam-rods, stair-rods,piston-rods--anything that will pander to your dismal appetite forartificial scenery, and bring respite to my raging brain and healing tomy lacerated soul!" Wholly unmoved--further than to smile sweetly--thisiron being simply turned back his wrist-bands daintily, and said he wouldnow proceed to hump himself. Well, all that was nearly three hours ago.It is questionable whether I am calm enough yet to write on the nobletheme of political economy, but I cannot resist the desire to try, for itis the one subject that is nearest to my heart and dearest to my brain ofall this world's philosophy.]

economy is heaven's best boon to man." When the loose but gifted Byron lay in his Venetian exile he observed that, if it could be granted him to go back and live his misspent life over again, he would give his lucid and unintoxicated intervals to the composition, not of frivolous rhymes, but of essays upon political economy. Washington loved this exquisite science; such names as Baker, Beckwith, Judson, Smith, are imperishably linked with it; and even imperial Homer, in the ninth book of the Iliad, has said:

The grandeur of these conceptions of the old poet, together with the felicity of the wording which clothes them, and the sublimity of the imagery whereby they are illustrated, have singled out that stanza, and made it more celebrated than any that ever--

["Now, not a word out of you--not a single word. Just state your billand relapse into impenetrable silence for ever and ever on thesepremises. Nine hundred, dollars? Is that all? This check for theamount will be honored at any respectable bank in America. What is thatmultitude of people gathered in the street for? How?--'looking at thelightning-rods!' Bless my life, did they never see any lightning-rodsbefore? Never saw 'such a stack of them on one establishment,' did Iunderstand you to say? I will step down and critically observe thispopular ebullition of ignorance."]

THREE DAYS LATER.--We are all about worn out. For four-and-twenty hoursour bristling premises were the talk and wonder of the town. Thetheaters languished, for their happiest scenic inventions were tame andcommonplace compared with my lightning-rods. Our street was blockednight and day with spectators, and among them were many who came fromthe country to see. It was a blessed relief on the second day when athunderstorm came up and the lightning began to "go for" my house, as thehistorian Josephus quaintly phrases it. It cleared the galleries, so tospeak. In five minutes there was not a spectator within half a mile ofmy place; but all the high houses about that distance away were full,windows, roof, and all. And well they might be, for all the fallingstars and Fourth-of-July fireworks of a generation, put together andrained down simultaneously out of heaven in one brilliant shower upon onehelpless roof, would not have any advantage of the pyrotechnic displaythat was making my house so magnificently conspicuous in the generalgloom of the storm.

By actual count, the lightning struck at my establishment sevenhundred and sixty-four times in forty minutes, but tripped on one ofthose faithful rods every time, and slid down the spiral-twist and shotinto the earth before it probably had time to be surprised at the way thething was done. And through all that bombardment only one patch of slateswas ripped up, and that was because, for a single instant, the rods inthe vicinity were transporting all the lightning they could possiblyaccommodate. Well, nothing was ever seen like it since the world began.For one whole day and night not a member of my family stuck his head outof the window but he got the hair snatched off it as smooth as abilliard-ball; and; if the reader will believe me, not one of us everdreamt of stirring abroad. But at last the awful siege came to anend-because there was absolutely no more electricity left in the cloudsabove us within grappling distance of my insatiable rods. Then I salliedforth, and gathered daring workmen together, and not a bite or a nap didwe take till the premises were utterly stripped of all their terrificarmament except just three rods on the house, one on the kitchen, and oneon the barn--and, behold, these remain there even unto this day. Andthen, and not till then, the people ventured to use our street again.I will remark here, in passing, that during that fearful time I did notcontinue my essay upon political economy. I am not even yet settledenough in nerve and brain to resume it.

TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN.--Parties having need of three thousand twohundred and eleven feet of best quality zinc-plated spiral-twistlightning-rod stuff, and sixteen hundred and thirty-one silver-tippedpoints, all in tolerable repair (and, although much worn by use, stillequal to any ordinary emergency), can hear of a bargains by addressingthe publisher.

THE JUMPING FROG [written about 1865]

IN ENGLISH. THEN IN FRENCH. THEN CLAWED BACK INTO A CIVILIZED LANGUAGEONCE MORE BY PATIENT, UNREMUNERATED TOIL.

Even a criminal is entitled to fair play; and certainly when a man whohas done no harm has been unjustly treated, he is privileged to do hisbest to right himself. My attention has just beep called to an articlesome three years old in a French Magazine entitled, 'Revue des DeuxMondes' (Review of Some Two Worlds), wherein the writer treats of "LesHumoristes Americaines" (These Humorist Americans). I am one of thesehumorists American dissected by him, and hence the complaint I am making.

This gentleman's article is an able one (as articles go, in the French,where they always tangle up everything to that degree that when you startinto a sentence you never know whether you are going to come out alive ornot). It is a very good article and the writer says all manner of kindand complimentary things about me--for which I am sure thank him with allmy heart; but then why should he go and spoil all his praise by oneunlucky experiment? What I refer to is this: he says my jumping Frog isa funny story, but still he can't see why it should ever really convulseany one with laughter--and straightway proceeds to translate it intoFrench in order to prove to his nation that there is nothing so veryextravagantly funny about it. Just there is where my complaintoriginates. He has not translated it at all; he has simply mixed it allup; it is no more like the jumping Frog when he gets through with it thanI am like a meridian of longitude. But my mere assertion is not proof;wherefore I print the French version, that all may see that I do notspeak falsely; furthermore, in order that even the unlettered may know myinjury and give me their compassion, I have been at infinite pains andtrouble to retranslate this French version back into English; and to tellthe truth I have well-nigh worn myself out at it, having scarcely restedfrom my work during five days and nights. I cannot speak the Frenchlanguage, but I can translate very well, though not fast, I being self-educated. I ask the reader to run his eye over the original Englishversion of the jumping Frog, and then read the French or myretranslation, and kindly take notice how the Frenchman has riddled thegrammar. I think it is the worst I ever saw; and yet the French arecalled a polished nation. If I had a boy that put sentences together asthey do, I would polish him to some purpose. Without furtherintroduction, the jumping Frog, as I originally wrote it, was as follows[after it will be found the French version--(French version is deletedfrom this edition)--, and after the latter my retranslation from theFrench]

THE NOTORIOUS JUMPING FROG OF CALAVERAS COUNTY [Pronounced Cal-e-va-ras]

In compliance with the request of a friend of mine, who wrote me from theEast, I called on good-natured, garrulous old Simon Wheeler, and inquiredafter my friend's friend, Leonidas W. Smiley, as requested to do, and Ihereunto append the result. I have a lurking suspicion that Leonidas W.Smiley is a myth that my friend never knew such a personage; and that heon conjectured that if I asked old Wheeler about him, it would remind himof his infamous Jim Smiley, and he would go to work and bore me to deathwith some exasperating reminiscence him as long and as tedious as itshould be useless to me. If that was the design, it succeeded.

I found Simon Wheeler dozing comfortably by the bar-room stove of thedilapidated tavern in the decayed mining camp Angel's, and I noticed thathe was fat and bald-headed, and had an expression of winning gentlenessand simplicity upon his tranquil countenance. He roused up, and gave megood day. I told him that a friend of mine had commissioned me to makesome inquiries about a cherished companion of his boyhood named LeonidasW. Smiley--Rev. Leonidas W. Smiley, a young minister of the Gospel, whohe had heard was at one time resident of Angel's Camp. I added that ifMr. Wheeler could tell me anything about this Rev. Leonidas W. Smiley,I would feel under many obligations to him.

Simon Wheeler backed me into a corner and blockaded me there with hischair, and then sat down and reeled off the monotonous narrative whichfollows this paragraph. He never smiled he never frowned, he neverchanged his voice from the gentle flowing key to which he tuned hisinitial sentence, he never betrayed the slightest suspicion ofenthusiasm; but all through the interminable narrative there ran a veinof impressive earnestness and sincerity, which showed me plainly that,so far from his imagining that there was anything ridiculous or funnyabout his story, he regarded it as a really important matter, and admiredits two heroes as men of transcendent genius in 'finesse.' I let him goon in his own way, and never interrupted him once.

"Rev. Leonidas W. H'm, Reverend Le--well, there was a feller here, onceby the name of Jim Smiley, in the winter of '49--or maybe it was thespring of '50--I don't recollect exactly, somehow, though what makes methink it was one or the other is because I remember the big flume warn'tfinished when he first come to the camp; but anyway, he was thecuriousest man about always betting on anything that turned up you eversee, if he could get anybody to bet on the other side; and if he couldn'the'd change sides. Any way that suited the other man would suit him anyway just so's he got a bet, he was satisfied. But still he was lucky,uncommon lucky; he most always come out winner. He was always ready andlaying for a chance; there couldn't be no solit'ry thing mentioned butthat feller'd offer to bet on it, and take any side you please, as I wasjust telling you. If there was a horse-race, you'd find him flush oryou'd find him busted at the end of it; if there was a dog-fight, he'dbet on it; if there was a cat-fight, he'd bet on it; if there was achicken-fight, he'd bet on it; why, if there was two birds setting on afence, he would bet you which one would fly first; or if there was acamp-meeting, he would be there reg'lar to bet on Parson Walker, which hejudged to be the best exhorter about here, and so he was too, and a goodman. If he even see a straddle-bug start to go anywheres, he would betyou how long it would take him to get to--to wherever he was going to,and if you took him up, he would foller that straddle-bug to Mexico butwhat he would find out where he was bound for and how long he was on theroad. Lots of the boys here has seen that Smiley, and can tell you abouthim. Why, it never made no difference to him--he'd bet on any thing--thedangdest feller. Parson Walker's wife laid very sick once, for a goodwhile, and it seemed as if they warn't going to save her; but one morninghe come in, and Smiley up and asked him how she was, and he said she wasconsiderable better--thank the Lord for his inf'nite mercy--and coming onso smart that with the blessing of Prov'dence she'd get well yet; andSmiley, before he thought, says, 'Well, I'll resk two-and-a-half shedon't anyway.'

"Thish-yer Smiley had a mare--the boys called her the fifteen-minute nag,but that was only in fun, you know, because of course she was faster thanthat--and he used to win money on that horse, for all she was so slow andalways had the asthma, or the distemper, or the consumption, or somethingof that kind. They used to give her two or three hundred yards' start,and then pass her under way; but always at the fag end of the race sheget excited and desperate like, and come cavorting and straddling up,and scattering her legs around limber, sometimes in the air, andsometimes out to one side among the fences, and kicking up m-o-r-e dustand raising m-o-r-e racket with her coughing and sneezing and blowing hernose--and always fetch up at the stand just about a neck ahead, as nearas you could cipher it down.

"And he had a little small bull-pup, that to look at him you'd think hewarn't worth a cent but to set around and look ornery and lay for achance to steal something. But as soon as money was up on him he was adifferent dog; his under-jaw'd begin to stick out like the fo'castle ofa steamboat, and his teeth would uncover and shine like the furnaces.And a dog might tackle him and bully-rag him, and bite him, and throw himover his shoulder two or three times, and Andrew Jackson--which was thename of the pup--Andrew Jackson would never let on but what he wassatisfied, and hadn't expected nothing else--and the bets being doubledand doubled on the other side all the time, till the money was all up;and then all of a sudden he would grab that other dog jest by the j'intof his hind leg and freeze to it--not chaw, you understand, but only justgrip and hang on till they throwed up the sponge, if it was a year.Smiley always come out winner on that pup, till he harnessed a dog oncethat didn't have no hind legs, because they'd been sawed off in acircular saw, and when the thing had gone along far enough, and the moneywas all up, and he come to make a snatch for his pet holt, he see in aminute how he'd been imposed on, and how the other dog had him in thedoor, so to speak, and he 'peared surprised, and then he looked sorterdiscouraged-like and didn't try no more to win the fight, and so he gotshucked out bad. He give Smiley a look, as much as to say his heart wasbroke, and it was his fault, for putting up a dog that hadn't no hindlegs for him to take holt of, which was his main dependence in a fight,and then he limped off a piece and laid down and died. It was a goodpup, was that Andrew Jackson, and would have made a name for hisself ifhe'd lived, for the stuff was in him and he had genius--I know it,because he hadn't no opportunities to speak of, and it don't stand toreason that a dog could make such a fight as he could under themcircumstances if he hadn't no talent. It always makes me feel sorry whenI think of that last fight of his'n, and the way it turned out.

"Well, thish-yer Smiley had rat-tarriers, and chicken cocks, and tomcatsand all them kind of things, till you couldn't rest, and you couldn'tfetch nothing for him to bet on but he'd match you. He ketched a frogone day, and took him home, and said he cal'lated to educate him; and sohe never done nothing for three months but set in his back yard and learnthat frog to jump. And you bet you he did learn him, too. He'd give him alittle punch behind, and the next minute you'd see that frog whirling inthe air like a doughnut--see him turn one summerset, or maybe a couple,if he got a good start, and come down flat-footed and all right, like acat. He got him up so in the matter of ketching flies, and kep' him inpractice so constant, that he'd nail a fly every time as fur as he couldsee him. Smiley said all a frog wanted was education, and he could do'most anything--and I believe him. Why, I've seen him set Dan'l Websterdown here on this floor--Dan'l Webster was the name of the frog--and singout, 'Flies, Dan'l, flies!' and quicker'n you could wink he'd springstraight up and snake a fly off'n the counter there, and flop down on thefloor ag'in as solid as a gob of mud, and fall to scratching the side ofhis head with his hind foot as indifferent as if he hadn't no idea he'dbeen doin' any more'n any frog might do. You never see a frog so modestand straightfor'ard as he was, for all he was so gifted. And when itcome to fair and square jumping on a dead level, he could get over moreground at one straddle than any animal of his breed you ever see.Jumping on a dead level was his strong suit, you understand; and when itcome to that, Smiley would ante up money on him as long as he had a red.Smiley was monstrous proud of his frog, and well he might be, for fellersthat had traveled and been everywheres all said he laid over any frogthat ever they see.

"Well, Smiley kep' the beast in a little lattice box, and he used tofetch him down-town sometimes and lay for a bet. One day a feller--a stranger in the camp, he was--come acrost him with his box, and says:

"'What might it be that you've got in the box?'

"And Smiley says, sorter indifferent-like, 'It might be a parrot, or itmight be a canary, maybe, but it ain't--it's only just a frog.'

"And the feller took it, and looked at it careful, and turned it roundthis way and that, and says, 'H'm--so 'tis. Well, what's HE good for.

"'Well,' Smiley says, easy and careless, 'he's good enough for one thing,I should judge--he can outjump any frog in Calaveras County.

"The feller took the box again, and took another long, partiular look,and give it back to Smiley, and says, very deliberate, 'Well,' he says,'I don't see no pints about that frog that's any better'n any otherfrog.'

"'Maybe you don't,' Smiley says. 'Maybe you understand frogs and maybeyou don't understand 'em; maybe you've had experience, and maybe youain't only a amature, as it were. Anyways, I've got my opinion, and I'llresk forty dollars the he can outjump any frog in Calaveras County.'

"And the feller studied a minute, and then says, kinder sad-like, 'Well,I'm only a, stranger here, and I ain't got no frog; but if I had a frog,I'd bet you.

"And then Smiley says, 'That's all right--that's all right if you'll holdmy box a minute, I'll go and get you a frog.' Any so the feller took thebox, and put up his forty dollars along with Smiley's, and set down towait.

"So he set there a good while thinking and thinking to himself and thenhe got the frog out and prized his mouth open and took a teaspoon andfilled him full of quail-shot-filled him pretty near up to his chin--andset him on the floor. Smiley he went to the swamp and slopped around inthe mud for a long time, and finally he ketched a frog, and fetched himin, and give him to this feller and says:

"'Now, if you're ready, set him alongside of Dan'l, with his fore pawsjust even with Dan'l's, and I'll give the word.' Then he says, 'One-two-three--git' and him and the feller touches up the frogs from behind, andthe new frog hopped off lively but Dan'l give a heave, and hysted up hisshoulders---so-like a Frenchman, but it warn't no use--he couldn't budge;he was planted as solid as a church, and he couldn't no more stir than ifhe was anchored out. Smiley was a good deal surprised, and he wasdisgusted too, but he didn't have no idea what the matter was of course.

"The Teller took the money and started away; and when he was going out atthe door, he sorter jerked his thumb over his shoulder--so--at Dan'l, andsays again, very deliberate, 'Well,' he says, 'I don't see no pints aboutthat frog that's any better'n any other frog.'

"Smiley he stood scratching his head and looking down at Dan'l a longtime, and at last he says, 'I do wonder what in the nation that frogthrow'd off for--I wonder if there ain't something the matter with him--he 'pears to look mighty baggy, somehow.' And he ketched Dan'l by thenap of the neck, and hefted him, and says, 'Why blame my cats if he don'tweigh five pound!' and turned him upside down and he belched out a doublehandful of shot. And then he see how it was, and he was the maddest man--he set the frog down and took out after that feller, but he neverketched him. And--"

[Here Simon Wheeler heard his name called from the front yard, and got upto see what was wanted.] And turning to me as he moved away, he said:"Just set where you are, stranger, and rest easy--I ain't going to begone a second."

But, by your leave, I did not think that a continuation of the history ofthe enterprising vagabond Jim Smiley would be likely to afford me muchinformation concerning the Rev. Leonidas W. Smiley, and so I startedaway.

At the door I met the sociable Wheeler returning, and he buttonholed meand recommenced:

"Well, thish-yer Smiley had a yaller one-eyed cow that didn't have notail, only just a short stump like a bannanner, and--"

However, lacking both time and inclination, I did not wait to hear aboutthe afflicted cow, but took my leave.

Now let the learned look upon this picture and say if iconoclasm canfurther go:

It there was one time here an individual known under the name of JimSmiley; it was in the winter of '89, possibly well at the spring of '50,I no me recollect not exactly. This which me makes to believe that itwas the one or the other, it is that I shall remember that the grandflume is not achieved when he arrives at the camp for the first time, butof all sides he was the man the most fond of to bet which one have seen,betting upon all that which is presented, when he could find anadversary; and when he not of it could not, he passed to the sideopposed. All that which convenienced to the other to him conveniencedalso; seeing that he had a bet Smiley was satisfied. And he had achance! a chance even worthless; nearly always he gained. It must to saythat he was always near to himself expose, but one no could mention theleast thing without that this gaillard offered to bet the bottom, nomatter what, and to take the side that one him would, as I you it saidall at the hour (tout a l'heure). If it there was of races, you him findrich or ruined at the end; if it, here is a combat of dogs, he bring hisbet; he himself laid always for a combat of cats, for a combat of cocks--by-blue! If you have see two birds upon a fence, he you should haveoffered of to bet which of those birds shall fly the first; and if thereis meeting at the camp (meeting au camp) he comes to bet regularly forthe cure Walker, which he judged to be the best predicator of theneighborhood (predicateur des environs) and which he was in effect, and abrave man. He would encounter a bug of wood in the road, whom he willbet upon the time which he shall take to go where she would go--and ifyou him have take at the word, he will follow the bug as far as Mexique,without himself caring to go so far; neither of the time which he therelost. One time the woman of the cure Walker is very sick during longtime, it seemed that one not her saved not; but one morning the curearrives, and Smiley him demanded how she goes, and he said that she iswell better, grace to the infinite misery (lui demande comment elle va,et il dit qu'elle est bien mieux, grace a l'infinie misericorde) so muchbetter that with the benediction of the Providence she herself of itwould pull out (elle s'en tirerait); and behold that without therethinking Smiley responds: "Well, I gage two-and-half that she will dieall of same."

This Smiley had an animal which the boys called the nag of the quarter ofhour, but solely for pleasantry, you comprehend, because, wellunderstand, she was more fast as that! [Now why that exclamation?--M. T.]And it was custom of to gain of the silver with this beast,notwithstanding she was poussive, cornarde, always taken of asthma, ofcolics or of consumption, or something of approaching. One him wouldgive two or three hundred yards at the departure, then one him passedwithout pain; but never at the last she not fail of herself echauffer,of herself exasperate, and she arrives herself ecartant, se defendant,her legs greles in the air before the obstacles, sometimes them elevatingand making with this more of dust than any horse, more of noise abovewith his eternumens and reniflemens--crac! she arrives then always firstby one head, as just as one can it measure. And he had a small bulldog(bouledogue!) who, to him see, no value, not a cent; one would believethat to bet against him it was to steal, so much he was ordinary; but assoon as the game made, she becomes another dog. Her jaw inferiorcommence to project like a deck of before, his teeth themselves discoverbrilliant like some furnaces, and a dog could him tackle (le taquiner),him excite, him murder (le mordre), him throw two or three times over hisshoulder, Andre Jackson--this was the name of the dog--Andre Jacksontakes that tranquilly, as if he not himself was never expecting otherthing, and when the bets were doubled and redoubled against him, he youseize the other dog just at the articulation of the leg of behind, and henot it leave more, not that he it masticate, you conceive, but he himselfthere shall be holding during until that one throws the sponge in theair, must he wait a year. Smiley gained always with this beast-la;unhappily they have finished by elevating a dog who no had not of feet ofbehind, because one them had sawed; and when things were at the pointthat he would, and that he came to himself throw upon his morselfavorite, the poor dog comprehended in an instant that he himself wasdeceived in him, and that the other dog him had. You no have never seenperson having the air more penaud and more discouraged; he not made noeffort to gain the combat, and was rudely shucked.

Eh bien! this Smiley nourished some terriers a rats, and some cocks ofcombat, and some pats, and all sorts of things; and with his rage ofbetting one no had more of repose. He trapped one day a frog and himimported with him (et l'emporta chez lui) saying that he pretended tomake his education. You me believe if you will, but during three monthshe not has nothing done but to him apprehend to jump (apprendre a sauter)in a court retired of her mansion (de sa maison). And I you respond thathe have succeeded. He him gives a small blow by behind, and the instantafter you shall see the frog turn in the air like a grease-biscuit, makeone summersault, sometimes two, when she was well started, and refallupon his feet like a cat. He him had accomplished in the art of togobble the flies (gober des mouches), and him there exercised continually--so well that a fly at the most far that she appeared was a fly lost.Smiley had custom to say that all which lacked to a frog it was theeducation, but with the education she could do nearly all--and I himbelieve. Tenez, I him have seen pose Daniel Webster there upon thisplank--Daniel Webster was the name of the frog--and to him sing, "Someflies, Daniel, some fifes!"--in a flash of the eye Daniel 30had bounded and seized a fly here upon the counter, then jumped anew atthe earth, where he rested truly to himself scratch the head with hisbehind foot, as if he no had not the least idea of his superiority.Never you not have seen frog as modest, as natural, sweet as she was.And when he himself agitated to jump purely and simply upon plain earth,she does more ground in one jump than any beast of his species than youcan know. To jump plain-this was his strong. When he himself agitatedfor that, Smiley multiplied the bets upon her as long as there to himremained a red. It must to know, Smiley was monstrously proud of hisfrog, and he of it was right, for some men who were traveled, who had allseen, said that they to him would be injurious to him compare, to anotherfrog. Smiley guarded Daniel in a little box latticed which he carriedbytimes to the village for some bet.

One day an individual stranger at the camp him arrested with his box andhim said:

"What is this that you have them shut up there within?"

Smiley said, with an air indifferent:

"That could be a paroquet, or a syringe (ou un serin), but this no isnothing of such, it not is but a frog."

The individual it took, it regarded with care, it turned from one sideand from the other, then he said:

"Tiens! in effect!--At what is she good?"

"My God!" respond Smiley, always with an air disengaged, "she is good forone thing, to my notice (A mon avis), she can better in jumping (elle pentbattre en sautant) all frogs of the county of Calaveras."

The individual retook the box, it examined of new longly, and it renderedto Smiley in saying with an air deliberate:

"Eh bien! I no saw not that that frog had nothing of better than eachfrog." (Je ne vois pas que cette grenouille ait rien de mieux qu'aucunegrenouille.) [If that isn't grammar gone to seed, then I count myself nojudge.--M. T.]

"Possible that you not it saw not," said Smiley, "possible that you--youcomprehend frogs; possible that you not you there comprehend nothing;possible that you had of the experience, and possible that you not be butan amateur. Of all manner (De toute maniere) I bet forty dollars thatshe better in jumping no matter which frog of the county of Calaveras."

The individual reflected a second, and said like sad:

"I not am but a stranger here, I no have not a frog; but if I of it hadone, I would embrace the bet."

"Strong well!" respond Smiley; "nothing of more facility. If you willhold my box a minute, I go you to search a frog (j'irai vous chercher)."

Behold, then, the individual, who guards the box, who puts his fortydollars upon those of Smiley, and who attends (et qui attend). Heattended enough long times, reflecting all solely. And figure you thathe takes Daniel, him opens the mouth by force and with a teaspoon himfills with shot of the hunt, even him fills just to the chin, then he himputs by the earth. Smiley during these times was at slopping in a swamp.Finally he trapped (attrape) a frog, him carried to that individual, andsaid:

"Now if you be ready, put him all against Daniel with their before feetupon the same line, and I give the signal"--then he added: "One, two,three--advance!"

Him and the individual touched their frogs by behind, and the frog newput to jump smartly, but Daniel himself lifted ponderously, exalted theshoulders thus, like a Frenchman--to what good? he not could budge, heis planted solid like a church he not advance no more than if one him hadput at the anchor.

Smiley was surprised and disgusted, but he no himself doubted not of theturn being intended (mais il ne se doutait pas du tour, bien entendu).The individual empocketed the silver, himself with it went, and of ithimself in going is it that he no gives not a jerk of thumb over theshoulder--like that--at the poor Daniel, in saying with his airdeliberate--(L'individu empoche l'argent, s'en va et en s'en allant est-ce qu'il ne donne pas un coup d pouce par-dessus l'epaule, comme ga, aupauvre Daniel, en disant de son air delibere):

"Eh bien! I no see not that that frog has nothin of better than another."

Smiley himself scratched longtimes the head, the eyes fixed upon Daniel,until that which at last he said:

"I me demand how the devil it makes itself that this beast has refused.Is it that she had something? One would believe that she is stuffed."

He grasped Daniel by the skin of the neck, him lifted and said:

"The wolf me bite if he no weigh not five pounds:"

He him reversed and the unhappy belched two handfuls of shot (et lemalheureux, etc.). When Smiley recognized how it was, he was like mad.He deposited his frog by the earth and ran after that individual, but henot him caught never.

Such is the jumping Frog, to the distorted French eye. I claim that Inever put together such an odious mixture of bad grammar and deliriumtremens in my life. And what has a poor foreigner like me done, to beabused and misrepresented like this? When I say, "Well, I don't see nopints about that frog that's any better'n any other frog," is it kind,is it just, for this Frenchman to try to make it appear that I said, "Ehbien! I no saw not that that frog had nothing of better than each frog"?I have no heart to write more. I never felt so about anything before.

HARTFORD, March, 1875,

JOURNALISM IN TENNESSEE--[Written about 1871.]

The editor of the Memphis Avalanche swoops thus mildly down upon a correspondent who posted him as a Radical:--"While he was writing the first word, the middle, dotting his i's, crossing his t's, and punching his period, he knew he was concocting a sentence that was saturated with infamy and reeking with falsehood."--Exchange.

I was told by the physician that a Southern climate would improve myhealth, and so I went down to Tennessee, and got a berth on the MorningGlory and Johnson County War-Whoop as associate editor. When I went onduty I found the chief editor sitting tilted back in a three-legged chairwith his feet on a pine table. There was another pine table in the roomand another afflicted chair, and both were half buried under newspapersand scraps and sheets of manuscript. There was a wooden box of sand,sprinkled with cigar stubs and "old soldiers," and a stove with a doorhanging by its upper hinge. The chief editor had a long-tailed blackcloth frock-coat on, and white linen pants. His boots were small andneatly blacked. He wore a ruffled shirt, a large seal-ring, a standingcollar of obsolete pattern, and a checkered neckerchief with the endshanging down. Date of costume about 1848. He was smoking a cigar, andtrying to think of a word, and in pawing his hair he had rumpled hislocks a good deal. He was scowling fearfully, and I judged that he wasconcocting a particularly knotty editorial. He told me to take theexchanges and skim through them and write up the "Spirit of the TennesseePress," condensing into the article all of their contents that seemed ofinterest.

I wrote as follows:

SPIRIT OF THE TENNESSEE PRESS

The editors of the Semi-Weekly Earthquake evidently labor under a misapprehension with regard to the Dallyhack railroad. It is not the object of the company to leave Buzzardville off to one side. On the contrary, they consider it one of the most important points along the line, and consequently can have no desire to slight it. The gentlemen of the Earthquake will, of course, take pleasure in making the correction.

John W. Blossom, Esq., the able editor of the Higginsville Thunderbolt and Battle Cry of Freedom, arrived in the city yesterday. He is stopping at the Van Buren House.

We observe that our contemporary of the Mud Springs Morning Howl has fallen into the error of supposing that the election of Van Werter is not an established fact, but he will have discovered his mistake before this reminder reaches him, no doubt. He was doubtless misled by incomplete election returns.

It is pleasant to note that the city of Blathersville is endeavoring to contract with some New York gentlemen to pave its well-nigh impassable streets with the Nicholson pavement. The Daily Hurrah urges the measure with ability, and seems confident of ultimate success.

I passed my manuscript over to the chief editor for acceptance,alteration, or destruction. He glanced at it and his face clouded. Heran his eye down the pages, and his countenance grew portentous. It waseasy to see that something was wrong. Presently he sprang up and said:

"Thunder and lightning! Do you suppose I am going to speak of thosecattle that way? Do you suppose my subscribers are going to stand suchgruel as that? Give me the pen!"

I never saw a pen scrape and scratch its way so viciously, or plowthrough another man's verbs and adjectives so relentlessly. While he wasin the midst of his work, somebody shot at him through the open window,and marred the symmetry of my ear.

"Ah," said he, "that is that scoundrel Smith, of the Moral Volcano--hewas due yesterday." And he snatched a navy revolver from his belt andfired--Smith dropped, shot in the thigh. The shot spoiled Smith's aim,who was just taking a second chance and he crippled a stranger. It wasme. Merely a finger shot off.

Then the chief editor went on with his erasure; and interlineations.Just as he finished them a hand grenade came down the stove-pipe, and theexplosion shivered the stove into a thousand fragments. However, it didno further damage, except that a vagrant piece knocked a couple of myteeth out.

"That stove is utterly ruined," said the chief editor.

I said I believed it was.

"Well, no matter--don't want it this kind of weather. I know the manthat did it. I'll get him. Now, here is the way this stuff ought to bewritten."

I took the manuscript. It was scarred with erasures and interlineationstill its mother wouldn't have known it if it had had one. It now read asfollows:

SPIRIT OF THE TENNESSEE PRESS

The inveterate liars of the Semi-Weekly Earthquake are evidently endeavoring to palm off upon a noble and chivalrous people another of their vile and brutal falsehoods with regard to that most glorious conception of the nineteenth century, the Ballyhack railroad. The idea that Buzzardville was to be left off at one side originated in their own fulsome brains--or rather in the settlings which they regard as brains. They had better, swallow this lie if they want to save their abandoned reptile carcasses the cowhiding they so richly deserve.

That ass, Blossom, of the Higginsville Thunderbolt and Battle Cry of Freedom, is down here again sponging at the Van Buren.

We observe that the besotted blackguard of the Mud Springs Morning Howl is giving out, with his usual propensity for lying, that Van Werter is not elected. The heaven-born mission of journalism is to disseminate truth; to eradicate error; to educate, refine, and elevate the tone of public morals and manners, and make all men more gentle, more virtuous, more charitable, and in all ways better, and holier, and happier; and yet this blackhearted scoundrel degrades his great office persistently to the dissemination of falsehood, calumny, vituperation, and vulgarity.

Blathersville wants a Nicholson pavement--it wants a jail and a poorhouse more. The idea of a pavement in a one-horse town composed of two gin-mills, a blacksmith shop, and that mustard-plaster of a newspaper, the Daily Hurrah! The crawling insect, Buckner, who edits the Hurrah, is braying about his business with his customary imbecility, and imagining that he is talking sense.

"Now that is the way to write--peppery and to the point. Mush-and-milkjournalism gives me the fan-tods."

About this time a brick came through the window with a splintering crash,and gave me a considerable of a jolt in the back. I moved out of range--I began to feel in the way.

The chief said, "That was the Colonel, likely. I've been expecting himfor two days. He will be up now right away."

He was correct. The Colonel appeared in the door a moment afterward witha dragoon revolver in his hand.

He said, "Sir, have I the honor of addressing the poltroon who edits thismangy sheet?"

"You have. Be seated, sir. Be careful of the chair, one of its legs isgone. I believe I have the honor of addressing the putrid liar, ColonelBlatherskite Tecumseh?"

"Right, Sir. I have a little account to settle with you. If you are atleisure we will begin."

"I have an article on the 'Encouraging Progress of Moral and IntellectualDevelopment in America' to finish, but there is no hurry. Begin."

Both pistols rang out their fierce clamor at the same instant. The chieflost a lock of his hair, and the Colonel's bullet ended its career in thefleshy part of my thigh. The Colonel's left shoulder was clipped alittle. They fired again. Both missed their men this time, but I got myshare, a shot in the arm. At the third fire both gentlemen were woundedslightly, and I had a knuckle chipped. I then said, I believed I wouldgo out and take a walk, as this was a private matter, and I had adelicacy about participating in it further. But both gentlemen begged meto keep my seat, and assured me that I was not in the way.

They then talked about the elections and the crops while they reloaded,and I fell to tying up my wounds. But presently they opened fire againwith animation, and every shot took effect--but it is proper to remarkthat five out of the six fell to my share. The sixth one mortallywounded the Colonel, who remarked, with fine humor, that he would have tosay good morning now, as he had business uptown. He then inquired theway to the undertaker's and left.

The chief turned to me and said, "I am expecting company to dinner, andshall have to get ready. It will be a favor to me if you will read proofand attend to the customers."

I winced a little at the idea of attending to the customers, but I wastoo bewildered by the fusillade that was still ringing in my ears tothink of anything to say.

He continued, "Jones will be here at three--cowhide him. Gillespie willcall earlier, perhaps--throw him out of the window. Ferguson will bealong about four--kill him. That is all for today, I believe. If youhave any odd time, you may write a blistering article on the police--givethe chief inspector rats. The cowhides are under the table; weapons inthe drawer--ammunition there in the corner--lint and bandages up there inthe pigeonholes. In case of accident, go to Lancet, the surgeon, down-stairs. He advertises--we take it out in trade."

He was gone. I shuddered. At the end of the next three hours I had beenthrough perils so awful that all peace of mind and all cheerfulness weregone from me. Gillespie had called and thrown me out of the window.Jones arrived promptly, and when I got ready to do the cowhiding he tookthe job off my hands. In an encounter with a stranger, not in the billof fare, I had lost my scalp. Another stranger, by the name of Thompson,left me a mere wreck and ruin of chaotic rags. And at last, at bay inthe corner, and beset by an infuriated mob of editors, blacklegs,politicians, and desperadoes, who raved and swore and flourished theirweapons about my head till the air shimmered with glancing flashes ofsteel, I was in the act of resigning my berth on the paper when the chiefarrived, and with him a rabble of charmed and enthusiastic friends. Thenensued a scene of riot and carnage such as no human pen, or steel oneeither, could describe. People were shot, probed, dismembered, blown up,thrown out of the window. There was a brief tornado of murky blasphemy,with a confused and frantic war-dance glimmering through it, and then allwas over. In five minutes there was silence, and the gory chief and Isat alone and surveyed the sanguinary ruin that strewed the floor aroundus.

He said, "You'll like this place when you get used to it."

I said, "I'll have to get you to excuse me; I think maybe I might writeto suit you after a while; as soon as I had had some practice and learnedthe language I am confident I could. But, to speak the plain truth, thatsort of energy of expression has its inconveniences, and a, man is liableto interruption.

"You see that yourself. Vigorous writing is calculated to elevate thepublic, no doubt, but then I do not like to attract so much attention asit calls forth. I can't write with comfort when I am interrupted so muchas I have been to-day. I like this berth well enough, but I don't liketo be left here to wait on the customers. The experiences are novel,I grant you, and entertaining, too, after a fashion, but they are notjudiciously distributed. A gentleman shoots at you through the windowand cripples me; a bombshell comes down the stovepipe for yourgratification and sends the stove door down my throat; a friend drops into swap compliments with you, and freckles me with bullet-holes till myskin won't hold my principles; you go to dinner, and Jones comes with hiscowhide, Gillespie throws me out of the window, Thompson tears all myclothes off, and an entire stranger takes my scalp with the easy freedomof an old acquaintance; and in less than five minutes all the blackguardsin the country arrive in their war-paint, and proceed to scare the restof me to death with their tomahawks. Take it altogether, I never hadsuch a spirited time in all my life as I have had to-day. No; I likeyou, and I like your calm unruffled way of explaining things to thecustomers, but you see I am not used to it. The Southern heart is tooimpulsive; Southern hospitality is too lavish with the stranger. Theparagraphs which I have written to-day, and into whose cold sentencesyour masterly hand has infused the fervent spirit of Tennesseeanjournalism, will wake up another nest of hornets. All that mob ofeditors will come--and they will come hungry, too, and want somebody forbreakfast. I shall have to bid you adieu. I decline to be present atthese festivities. I came South for my health, I will go back on thesame errand, and suddenly. Tennesseean journalism is too stirring forme."

After which we parted with mutual regret, and I took apartments at thehospital.

THE STORY OF THE BAD LITTLE BOY--[Written about 1865]

Once there was a bad little boy whose name was Jim--though, if you willnotice, you will find that bad little boys are nearly always called Jamesin your Sunday-school books. It was strange, but still it was true, thatthis one was called Jim.

He didn't have any sick mother, either--a sick mother who was pious andhad the consumption, and would be glad to lie down in the grave and be atrest but for the strong love she bore her boy, and the anxiety she feltthat the world might be harsh and cold toward him when she was gone.Most bad boys in the Sunday books are named James, and have sick mothers,who teach them to say, "Now, I lay me down," etc., and sing them to sleepwith sweet, plaintive voices, and then kiss them good night, and kneeldown by the bedside and weep. But it was different with this fellow.He was named Jim, and there wasn't anything the matter with his mother--no consumption, nor anything of that kind. She was rather stout thanotherwise, and she was not pious; moreover, she was not anxious on Jim'saccount. She said if he were to break his neck it wouldn't be much loss.She always spanked Jim to sleep, and she never kissed him good night; onthe contrary, she boxed his ears when she was ready to leave him.

Once this little bad boy stole the key of the pantry, and slipped inthere and helped himself to some jam, and filled up the vessel with tar,so that his mother would never know the difference; but all at once aterrible feeling didn't come over him, and something didn't seem towhisper to him, "Is it right to disobey my mother? Isn't it sinful to dothis? Where do bad little boys go who gobble up their good kind mother'sjam?" and then he didn't kneel down all alone and promise never to bewicked any more, and rise up with a light, happy heart, and go and tellhis mother all about it, and beg her forgiveness, and be blessed by herwith tears of pride and thankfulness in her eyes. No; that is the waywith all other bad boys in the books; but it happened otherwise with thisJim, strangely enough. He ate that jam, and said it was bully, in hissinful, vulgar way; and he put in the tar, and said that was bully also,and laughed, and observed "that the old woman would get up and snort"when she found it out; and when she did find it out, he denied knowinganything about it, and she whipped him severely, and he did the cryinghimself. Everything about this boy was curious--everything turned outdifferently with him from the way it does to the bad Jameses in thebooks.

Once he climbed up in Farmer Acorn's apple tree to steal apples, and thelimb didn't break, and he didn't fall and break his arm, and get torn bythe farmer's great dog, and then languish on a sickbed for weeks, andrepent and become good. Oh, no; he stole as many apples as he wanted andcame down all right; and he was all ready for the dog, too, and knockedhim endways with a brick when he came to tear him. It was very strange--nothing like it ever happened in those mild little books with marbledbacks, and with pictures in them of men with swallow-tailed coats andbell-crowned hats, and pantaloons that are short in the legs, and womenwith the waists of their dresses under their arms, and no hoops on.Nothing like it in any of the Sunday-school books.

Once he stole the teacher's penknife, and, when he was afraid it would befound out and he would get whipped, he slipped it into George Wilson'scap poor Widow Wilson's son, the moral boy, the good little boy of thevillage, who always obeyed his mother, and never told an untruth, and wasfond of his lessons, and infatuated with Sunday-school. And when theknife dropped from the cap, and poor George hung his head and blushed,as if in conscious guilt, and the grieved teacher charged the theft uponhim, and was just in the very act of bringing the switch down upon histrembling shoulders, a white-haired, improbable justice of the peace didnot suddenly appear in their midst, and strike an attitude and say,"Spare this noble boy--there stands the cowering culprit! I was passingthe school door at recess, and, unseen myself, I saw the theftcommitted!" And then Jim didn't get whaled, and the venerable justicedidn't read the tearful school a homily, and take George by the hand andsay such boy deserved to be exalted, and then tell him come and make hishome with him, and sweep out the office, and make fires, and run errands,and chop wood, and study law, and help his wife do household labors, andhave all the balance of the time to play and get forty cents a month, andbe happy. No it would have happened that way in the books, but didn'thappen that way to Jim. No meddling old clam of a justice dropped in tomake trouble, and so the model boy George got thrashed, and Jim was gladof it because, you know, Jim hated moral boys. Jim said he was "down onthem milksops." Such was the coarse language of this bad, neglected boy.

But the strangest thing that ever happened to Jim was the time he wentboating on Sunday, and didn't get drowned, and that other time that hegot caught out in the storm when he was fishing on Sunday and didn't getstruck by lightning. Why, you might look, and look, all through theSunday-school books from now till next Christmas, and you would nevercome across anything like this. Oh, no; you would find that all the badboys who go boating on Sunday invariably get drowned; and all the badboys who get caught out in storms when they are fishing on Sundayinfallibly get struck by lightning. Boats with bad boys in them alwaysupset on Sunday, and it always storms when bad boys go fishing on theSabbath. How this Jim ever escaped is a mystery to me.

This Jim bore a charmed life--that must have been the way of it. Nothingcould hurt him. He even gave the elephant in the menagerie a plug oftobacco, and the elephant didn't knock the top of his head off with histrunk. He browsed around the cupboard after essence-of peppermint, anddidn't make a mistake and drink aqua fortis. He stole his father's gunand went hunting on the Sabbath, and didn't shoot three or four of hisfingers off. He struck his little sister on the temple with his fistwhen he was angry, and she didn't linger in pain through long summerdays, and die with sweet words of forgiveness upon her lips thatredoubled the anguish of his breaking heart. No; she got over it. Heran off and went to sea at last, and didn't come back and find himselfsad and alone in the world, his loved ones sleeping in the quietchurchyard, and the vine-embowered home of his boyhood tumbled down andgone to decay. Ah, no; he came home as drunk as a piper, and got intothe station-house the first thing.

And he grew up and married, and raised a large family, and brained themall with an ax one night, and got wealthy by all manner of cheating andrascality; and now he is the infernalest wickedest scoundrel in hisnative village, and is universally respected, and belongs to thelegislature.

So you see there never was a bad James in the Sunday-school books thathad such a streak of luck as this sinful Jim with the charmed life.

THE STORY OF THE GOOD LITTLE BOY--[Witten about 1865]

Once there was a good little boy by the name of Jacob Blivens. He alwaysobeyed his parents, no matter how absurd and unreasonable their demandswere; and he always learned his book, and never was late at Sabbath-school. He would not play hookey, even when his sober judgment told himit was the most profitable thing he could do. None of the other boyscould ever make that boy out, he acted so strangely. He wouldn't lie, nomatter how convenient it was. He just said it was wrong to lie, and thatwas sufficient for him. And he was so honest that he was simplyridiculous. The curious ways that that Jacob had, surpassed everything.He wouldn't play marbles on Sunday, he wouldn't rob birds' nests, hewouldn't give hot pennies to organ-grinders' monkeys; he didn't seem totake any interest in any kind of rational amusement. So the other boysused to try to reason it out and come to an understanding of him, butthey couldn't arrive at any satisfactory conclusion. As I said before,they could only figure out a sort of vague idea that he was "afflicted,"and so they took him under their protection, and never allowed any harmto come to him.

This good little boy read all the Sunday-school books; they were hisgreatest delight. This was the whole secret of it. He believed in thegold little boys they put in the Sunday-school book; he had everyconfidence in them. He longed to come across one of them alive once;but he never did. They all died before his time, maybe. Whenever heread about a particularly good one he turned over quickly to the end tosee what became of him, because he wanted to travel thousands of milesand gaze on him; but it wasn't any use; that good little boy always diedin the last chapter, and there was a picture of the funeral, with all hisrelations and the Sunday-school children standing around the grave inpantaloons that were too short, and bonnets that were too large, andeverybody crying into handkerchiefs that had as much as a yard and a halfof stuff in them. He was always headed off in this way. He never couldsee one of those good little boys on account of his always dying in thelast chapter.

Jacob had a noble ambition to be put in a Sunday school book. He wantedto be put in, with pictures representing him gloriously declining to lieto his mother, and her weeping for joy about it; and picturesrepresenting him standing on the doorstep giving a penny to a poorbeggar-woman with six children, and telling her to spend it freely, butnot to be extravagant, because extravagance is a sin; and pictures of himmagnanimously refusing to tell on the bad boy who always lay in wait forhim around the corner as he came from school, and welted him so over thehead with a lath, and then chased him home, saying, "Hi! hi!" as heproceeded. That was the ambition of young Jacob Blivens. He wished tobe put in a Sunday-school book. It made him feel a lithe uncomfortablesometimes when he reflected that the good little boys always died. Heloved to live, you know, and this was the most unpleasant feature aboutbeing a Sunday-school-boo boy. He knew it was not healthy to be good.He knew it was more fatal than consumption to be so supernaturally goodas the boys in the books were he knew that none of them had ever beenable to stand it long, and it pained him to think that if they put him ina book he wouldn't ever see it, or even if they did get the book outbefore he died it wouldn't be popular without any picture of his funeralin the back part of it. It couldn't be much of a Sunday-school book thatcouldn't tell about the advice he gave to the community when he wasdying. So at last, of course, he had to make up his mind to do the besthe could under the circumstances--to live right, and hang on as long ashe could and have his dying speech all ready when his time came.

But somehow nothing ever went right with the good little boy; nothingever turned out with him the way it turned out with the good little boysin the books. They always had a good time, and the bad boys had thebroken legs; but in his case there was a screw loose somewhere, and itall happened just the other way. When he found Jim Blake stealingapples, and went under the tree to read to him about the bad little boywho fell out of a neighbor's apple tree and broke his arm, Jim fell outof the tree, too, but he fell on him and broke his arm, and Jim wasn'thurt at all. Jacob couldn't understand that. There wasn't anything inthe books like it.

And once, when some bad boys pushed a blind man over in the mud, andJacob ran to help him up and receive his blessing, the blind man did notgive him any blessing at all, but whacked him over the head with hisstick and said he would like to catch him shoving him again, and thenpretending to help him up. This was not in accordance with any of thebooks. Jacob looked them all over to see.

One thing that Jacob wanted to do was to find a lame dog that hadn't anyplace to stay, and was hungry and persecuted, and bring him home and pethim and have that dog's imperishable gratitude. And at last he found oneand was happy; and he brought him home and fed him, but when he was goingto pet him the dog flew at him and tore all the clothes off him exceptthose that were in front, and made a spectacle of him that wasastonishing. He examined authorities, but he could not understand thematter. It was of the same breed of dogs that was in the books, but itacted very differently. Whatever this boy did he got into trouble. Thevery things the boys in the books got rewarded for turned out to be aboutthe most unprofitable things he could invest in.

Once, when he was on his way to Sunday-school, he saw some bad boysstarting off pleasuring in a sailboat. He was filled with consternation,because he knew from his reading that boys who went sailing on Sundayinvariably got drowned. So he ran out on a raft to warn them, but a logturned with him and slid him into the river. A man got him out prettysoon, and the doctor pumped the water out of him, and gave him a freshstart with his bellows, but he caught cold and lay sick abed nine weeks.But the most unaccountable thing about it was that the bad boys in theboat had a good time all day, and then reached home alive and well in themost surprising manner. Jacob Blivens said there was nothing like thesethings in the books. He was perfectly dumfounded.

When he got well he was a little discouraged, but he resolved to keep ontrying anyhow. He knew that so far his experiences wouldn't do to go ina book, but he hadn't yet reached the allotted term of life for goodlittle boys, and he hoped to be able to make a record yet if he couldhold on till his time was fully up. If everything else failed he had hisdying speech to fall back on.

He examined his authorities, and found that it was now time for him to goto sea as a cabin-boy. He called on a ship-captain and made hisapplication, and when the captain asked for his recommendations heproudly drew out a tract and pointed to the word, "To Jacob Blivens, fromhis affectionate teacher." But the captain was a coarse, vulgar man, andhe said, "Oh, that be blowed! that wasn't any proof that he knew how towash dishes or handle a slush-bucket, and he guessed he didn't want him."This was altogether the most extraordinary thing that ever happened toJacob in all his life. A compliment from a teacher, on a tract, hadnever failed to move the tenderest emotions of ship-captains, and openthe way to all offices of honor and profit in their gift it never had inany book that ever he had read. He could hardly believe his senses.

This boy always had a hard time of it. Nothing ever came out accordingto the authorities with him. At last, one day, when he was aroundhunting up bad little boys to admonish, he found a lot of them in the oldiron-foundry fixing up a little joke on fourteen or fifteen dogs, whichthey had tied together in long procession, and were going to ornamentwith empty nitroglycerin cans made fast to their tails. Jacob's heartwas touched. He sat down on one of those cans (for he never mindedgrease when duty was before him), and he took hold of the foremost dog bythe collar, and turned his reproving eye upon wicked Tom Jones. But justat that moment Alderman McWelter, full of wrath, stepped in. All the badboys ran away, but Jacob Blivens rose in conscious innocence and beganone of those stately little Sunday-school-book speeches which alwayscommence with "Oh, sir!" in dead opposition to the fact that no boy, goodor bad, ever starts a remark with "Oh, sir." But the alderman neverwaited to hear the rest. He took Jacob Blivens by the ear and turned himaround, and hit him a whack in the rear with the flat of his hand; and inan instant that good little boy shot out through the roof and soared awaytoward the sun with the fragments of those fifteen dogs stringing afterhim like the tail of a kite. And there wasn't a sign of that alderman orthat old iron-foundry left on the face of the earth; and, as for youngJacob Blivens, he never got a chance to make his last dying speech afterall his trouble fixing it up, unless he made it to the birds; because,although the bulk of him came down all right in a tree-top in anadjoining county, the rest of him was apportioned around among fourtownships, and so they had to hold five inquests on him to find outwhether he was dead or not, and how it occurred. You never saw a boyscattered so.--[This glycerin catastrophe is borrowed from a floatingnewspaper item, whose author's name I would give if I knew it.--M. T.]

Thus perished the good little boy who did the best he could, but didn'tcome out according to the books. Every boy who ever did as he didprospered except him. His case is truly remarkable. It will probablynever be accounted for.

A COUPLE OF POEMS BY TWAIN AND MOORE--[Written about 1865]

THOSE EVENING BELLS

BY THOMAS MOORE

Those evening bells! those evening bells! How many a tale their music tells Of youth, and home, and that sweet time When last I heard their soothing chime.

Those joyous hours are passed away; And many a heart that then was gay, Within the tomb now darkly dwells, And hears no more those evening bells.

And so 'twill be when I am gone That tuneful peal will still ring on; While other bards shall walk these dells, And sing your praise, sweet evening bells.

THOSE ANNUAL BILLS

BY MARK TWAIN

These annual bills! these annual bills! How many a song their discord trills Of "truck" consumed, enjoyed, forgot, Since I was skinned by last year's lot!

Those joyous beans are passed away; Those onions blithe, O where are they? Once loved, lost, mourned--now vexing ILLS Your shades troop back in annual bills!

And so 'twill be when I'm aground These yearly duns will still go round, While other bards, with frantic quills, Shall damn and damn these annual bills!

NIAGARA [ Written about 1871.]

Niagara Falls is a most enjoyable place of resort. The hotels areexcellent, and the prices not at all exorbitant. The opportunities forfishing are not surpassed in the country; in fact, they are not evenequaled elsewhere. Because, in other localities, certain places in thestreams are much better than others; but at Niagara one place is just asgood as another, for the reason that the fish do not bite anywhere, andso there is no use in your walking five miles to fish, when you candepend on being just as unsuccessful nearer home. The advantages of thisstate of things have never heretofore been properly placed before thepublic.

The weather is cool in summer, and the walks and drives are all pleasantand none of them fatiguing. When you start out to "do" the Falls youfirst drive down about a mile, and pay a small sum for the privilege oflooking down from a precipice into the narrowest part of the NiagaraRiver. A railway "cut" through a hill would be as comely if it had theangry river tumbling and foaming through its bottom. You can descend astaircase here a hundred and fifty feet down, and stand at the edge ofthe water. After you have done it, you will wonder why you did it; butyou will then be too late.

The guide will explain to you, in his blood-curdling way, how he saw thelittle steamer, Maid of the Mist, descend the fearful rapids--how firstone paddle-box was out of sight behind the raging billows and then theother, and at what point it was that her smokestack toppled overboard,and where her planking began to break and part asunder--and how she didfinally live through the trip, after accomplishing the incredible feat oftraveling seventeen miles in six minutes, or six miles in seventeenminutes, I have really forgotten which. But it was very extraordinary,anyhow. It is worth the price of admission to hear the guide tell thestory nine times in succession to different parties, and never miss aword or alter a sentence or a gesture.

Then you drive over to Suspension Bridge, and divide your misery betweenthe chances of smashing down two hundred feet into the river below, andthe chances of having the railway-train overhead smashing down onto you.Either possibility is discomforting taken by itself, but, mixed together,they amount in the aggregate to positive unhappiness.

On the Canada side you drive along the chasm between long ranks ofphotographers standing guard behind their cameras, ready to make anostentatious frontispiece of you and your decaying ambulance, and yoursolemn crate with a hide on it, which you are expected to regard in thelight of a horse, and a diminished and unimportant background of sublimeNiagara; and a great many people have the incredible effrontery or thenative depravity to aid and abet this sort of crime.

Any day, in the hands of these photographers, you may see statelypictures of papa and mamma, Johnny and Bub and Sis or a couple of countrycousins, all smiling vacantly, and all disposed in studied anduncomfortable attitudes in their carriage, and all looming up in theirawe-inspiring imbecility before the snubbed and diminished presentment ofthat majestic presence whose ministering spirits are the rainbows, whosevoice is the thunder, whose awful front is veiled in clouds, who wasmonarch here dead and forgotten ages before this hackful of smallreptiles was deemed temporarily necessary to fill a crack in the world'sunnoted myriads, and will still be monarch here ages and decades of agesafter they shall have gathered themselves to their blood-relations, theother worms, and been mingled with the unremembering dust.

There is no actual harm in making Niagara a background whereon to displayone's marvelous insignificance in a good strong light, but it requires asort of superhuman self-complacency to enable one to do it.

When you have examined the stupendous Horseshoe Fall till you aresatisfied you cannot improve on it, you return to America by the newSuspension Bridge, and follow up the bank to where they exhibit the Caveof the Winds.

Here I followed instructions, and divested myself of all my clothing, andput on a waterproof jacket and overalls. This costume is picturesque,but not beautiful. A guide, similarly dressed, led the way down a flightof winding stairs, which wound and wound, and still kept on winding longafter the thing ceased to be a novelty, and then terminated long beforeit had begun to be a pleasure. We were then well down under theprecipice, but still considerably above the level of the river.

We now began to creep along flimsy bridges of a single plank, our personsshielded from destruction by a crazy wooden railing, to which I clungwith both hands--not because I was afraid, but because I wanted to.Presently the descent became steeper and the bridge flimsier, and spraysfrom the American Fall began to rain down on us in fast increasing sheetsthat soon became blinding, and after that our progress was mostly in thenature of groping. Nova a furious wind began to rush out from behind thewaterfall, which seemed determined to sweep us from the bridge, andscatter us on the rocks and among the torrents below. I remarked that Iwanted to go home; but it was too late. We were almost under themonstrous wall of water thundering down from above, and speech was invain in the midst of such a pitiless crash of sound.

In another moment the guide disappeared behind the deluge, and bewilderedby the thunder, driven helplessly by the wind, and smitten by the arrowytempest of rain, I followed. All was darkness. Such a mad storming,roaring, and bellowing of warring wind and water never crazed my earsbefore. I bent my head, and seemed to receive the Atlantic on my back.The world seemed going to destruction. I could not see anything, theflood poured down savagely. I raised my head, with open mouth, and themost of the American cataract went down my throat. If I had sprung aleak now I had been lost. And at this moment I discovered that thebridge had ceased, and we must trust for a foothold to the slippery andprecipitous rocks. I never was so scared before and survived it. But wegot through at last, and emerged into the open day, where we could standin front of the laced and frothy and seething world of descending water,and look at it. When I saw how much of it there was, and how fearfullyin earnest it was, I was sorry I had gone behind it.

The noble Red Man has always been a friend and darling of mine. I loveto read about him in tales and legends and romances. I love to read ofhis inspired sagacity, and his love of the wild free life of mountain andforest, and his general nobility of character, and his statelymetaphorical manner of speech, and his chivalrous love for the duskymaiden, and the picturesque pomp of his dress and accoutrements.Especially the picturesque pomp of his dress and accoutrements. When Ifound the shops at Niagara Falls full of dainty Indian beadwork, andstunning moccasins, and equally stunning toy figures representing humanbeings who carried their weapons in holes bored through their arms andbodies, and had feet shaped like a pie, I was filled with emotion.I knew that now, at last, I was going to come face to face with the nobleRed Man.

A lady clerk in a shop told me, indeed, that all her grand array ofcuriosities were made by the Indians, and that they were plenty about theFalls, and that they were friendly, and it would not be dangerous tospeak to them. And sure enough, as I approached the bridge leading overto Luna Island, I came upon a noble Son of the Forest sitting under atree, diligently at work on a bead reticule. He wore a slouch hat andbrogans, and had a short black pipe in his mouth. Thus does the banefulcontact with our effeminate civilization dilute the picturesque pompwhich is so natural to the Indian when far removed from us in his nativehaunts. I addressed the relic as follows:

"Is the Wawhoo-Wang-Wang of the Whack-a-Whack happy? Does the greatSpeckled Thunder sigh for the war-path, or is his heart contented withdreaming of the dusky maiden, the Pride of the Forest? Does the mightySachem yearn to drink the blood of his enemies, or is he satisfied tomake bead reticules for the pappooses of the paleface? Speak, sublimerelic of bygone grandeur--venerable ruin, speak!"

The relic said:

"An' is it mesilf, Dennis Hooligan, that ye'd be takon' for a dirtyInjin, ye drawlin', lantern-jawed, spider-legged divil! By the piperthat played before Moses, I'll ate ye!"

I went away from there.

By and by, in the neighborhood of the Terrapin Tower, I came upon agentle daughter of the aborigines in fringed and beaded buckskinmoccasins and leggins, seated on a bench with her pretty wares about her.She had just carved out a wooden chief that had a strong familyresemblance to a clothes-pin, and was now boring a hole through hisabdomen to put his bow through. I hesitated a moment, and then addressedher:

"Is the heart of the forest maiden heavy? Is the Laughing Tadpolelonely? Does she mourn over the extinguished council-fires of her race,and the vanished glory of her ancestors? Or does her sad spirit wanderafar toward the hunting-grounds whither her brave Gobbler-of-the-Lightnings is gone? Why is my daughter silent? Has she ought againstthe paleface stranger?"

"Confound these Indians!" I said. "They told me they were tame; but, ifappearances go for anything, I should say they were all on the warpath."

I made one more attempt to fraternize with them, and only one. I cameupon a camp of them gathered in the shade of a great tree, making wampumand moccasins, and addressed them in the language of friendship:

"Noble Red Men, Braves, Grand Sachems, War Chiefs, Squaws, and High Muck-a-Mucks, the paleface from the land of the setting sun greets you! You,Beneficent Polecat--you, Devourer of Mountains--you, Roaring Thundergust--you, Bully Boy with a Glass eye--the paleface from beyond the greatwaters greets you all! War and pestilence have thinned your ranks anddestroyed your once proud nation. Poker and seven-up, and a vain modernexpense for soap, unknown to your glorious ancestors, have depleted yourpurses. Appropriating, in your simplicity, the property of others hasgotten you into trouble. Misrepresenting facts, in your simpleinnocence, has damaged your reputation with the soulless usurper.Trading for forty-rod whisky, to enable you to get drunk and happy andtomahawk your families, has played the everlasting mischief with thepicturesque pomp of your dress, and here you are, in the broad light ofthe nineteenth century, gotten up like the ragtag and bobtail of thepurlieus of New York. For shame! Remember your ancestors! Recall theirmighty deeds! Remember Uncas!--and Red jacket! and Hole in the Day!--and Whoopdedoodledo! Emulate their achievements! Unfurl yourselvesunder my banner, noble savages, illustrious guttersnipes--"

It was the quickest operation that ever was. I simply saw a sudden flashin the air of clubs, brickbats, fists, bead-baskets, and moccasins--asingle flash, and they all appeared to hit me at once, and no two of themin the same place. In the next instant the entire tribe was upon me.They tore half the clothes off me; they broke my arms and legs; they gaveme a thump that dented the top of my head till it would hold coffee likea saucer; and, to crown their disgraceful proceedings and add insult toinjury, they threw me over the Niagara Falls, and I got wet.

About ninety or a hundred feet from the top, the remains of my vestcaught on a projecting rock, and I was almost drowned before I could getloose. I finally fell, and brought up in a world of white foam at thefoot of the Fall, whose celled and bubbly masses towered up severalinches above my head. Of course I got into the eddy. I sailed round andround in it forty-four times--chasing a chip and gaining on it--eachround trip a half-mile--reaching for the same bush on the bank forty-fourtimes, and just exactly missing it by a hair's-breadth every time.

At last a man walked down and sat down close to that bush, and put a pipein his mouth, and lit a match, and followed me with one eye and kept theother on the match, while he sheltered it in his hands from the wind.Presently a puff of wind blew it out. The next time I swept around hesaid:

"Got a match?"

"Yes; in my other vest. Help me out, please."

"Not for Joe."

When I came round again, I said:

"Excuse the seemingly impertinent curiosity of a drowning man, but willyou explain this singular conduct of yours?"

"With pleasure. I am the coroner. Don't hurry on my account. I canwait for you. But I wish I had a match."

I said: "Take my place, and I'll go and get you one."

He declined. This lack of confidence on his part created a coldnessbetween us, and from that time forward I avoided him. It was my idea,in case anything happened to me, to so time the occurrence as to throw mycustom into the hands of the opposition coroner on the American side.

At last a policeman came along, and arrested me for disturbing the peaceby yelling at people on shore for help. The judge fined me, but had theadvantage of him. My money was with my pantaloons, and my pantaloonswere with the Indians.

Thus I escaped. I am now lying in a very critical condition. At least Iam lying anyway---critical or not critical. I am hurt all over, but Icannot tell the full extent yet, because the doctor is not done takinginventory. He will make out my manifest this evening. However, thus farhe thinks only sixteen of my wounds are fatal. I don't mind the others.

Upon regaining my right mind, I said:

"It is an awful savage tribe of Indians that do the beadwork andmoccasins for Niagara Falls, doctor. Where are they from?"

"Limerick, my son."

ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS--[Written about 1865.]

"MORAL STATISTICIAN."--I don't want any of your statistics; I took yourwhole batch and lit my pipe with it. I hate your kind of people. Youare always ciphering out how much a man's health is injured, and how muchhis intellect is impaired, and how many pitiful dollars and cents hewastes in the course of ninety-two years' indulgence in the fatalpractice of smoking; and in the equally fatal practice of drinkingcoffee; and in playing billiards occasionally; and in taking a glass ofwine at dinner, etc., etc., etc. And you are always figuring out howmany women have been burned to death because of the dangerous fashion ofwearing expansive hoops, etc., etc., etc. You never see more than oneside of the question. You are blind to the fact that most old men inAmerica smoke and drink coffee, although, according to your theory, theyought to have died young; and that hearty old Englishmen drink wine andsurvive it, and portly old Dutchmen both drink and smoke freely, and yetgrow older and fatter all the time. And you never by to find out howmuch solid comfort, relaxation, and enjoyment a man derives from smokingin the course of a lifetime (which is worth ten times the money he wouldsave by letting it alone), nor the appalling aggregate of happiness lostin a lifetime your kind of people from not smoking. Of course you cansave money by denying yourself all the little vicious enjoyments forfifty years; but then what can you do with it? What use can you put itto? Money can't save your infinitesimal soul. All the use that moneycan be put to is to purchase comfort and enjoyment in this life;therefore, as you are an enemy to comfort and enjoyment, where is the useof accumulating cash? It won't do for you say that you can use it tobetter purpose in furnishing a good table, and in charities, and insupporting tract societies, because you know yourself that you people whohave no petty vices are never known to give away a cent, and that youstint yourselves so in the matter of food that you are always feeble andhungry. And you never dare to laugh in the daytime for fear some poorwretch, seeing you in a good humor, will try to borrow a dollar of you;and in church you are always down on your knees, with your eyes buried inthe cushion, when the contribution-box comes around; and you never givethe revenue officer: full statement of your income. Now you know thesethings yourself, don't you? Very well, then what is the use of yourstringing out your miserable lives to a lean and withered old age? Whatis the use of your saving money that is so utterly worthless to you? Ina word, why don't you go off somewhere and die, and not be always tryingto seduce people into becoming as "ornery" and unlovable as you areyourselves, by your villainous "moral statistics"? Now I don't approveof dissipation, and I don't indulge in it, either; but I haven't aparticle of confidence in a man who has no redeeming petty vices, and soI don't want to hear from you any more. I think you are the very sameman who read me a long lecture last week about the degrading vice ofsmoking cigars, and then came back, in my absence, with yourreprehensible fireproof gloves on, and carried off my beautiful parlorstove.

"YOUNG AUTHOR."--Yes, Agassiz does recommend authors to eat fish, becausethe phosphorus in it makes brain. So far you are correct. But I cannothelp you to a decision about the amount you need to eat--at least, notwith certainty. If the specimen composition you send is about your fairusual average, I should judge that perhaps a couple of whales would beall you would want for the present. Not the largest kind, but simplygood, middling-sized whales.